Rep. Clancy calls for a clean bill, not a polished turd.

MADISON – Wednesday night the Wisconsin State Legislature voted along party lines to pass AB-245, a bill stripping local control from municipalities and counties in exchange for tiny increases to shared revenue.

Representative Clancy (D-19) issued the following statement:

“The rhetoric around this bill is wrong. Milwaukee is not asking to be saved. We’re not asking for a ‘handout’, or ‘aid’, or to be ‘rescued.’ Milwaukee is simply asking to get back more of the tax revenue that we generate, that we surrender to the state and which subsidizes communities all across Wisconsin.

This Statehouse has choked off Milwaukee’s revenue for two decades; we are asking to be choked less.

This bill should contain no policy. We should not be dictating terms to local governments starved for funding whether in the City of Milwaukee or the Town of Maple.

The specific policy contained within this bill would be laughable if it wasn’t so damaging. It’s a laundry list of failed Republican policy ideas and pet peeves slapped without thought onto insufficient crumbs of new shared revenue.

It is a clear attack on the work of BIPOC organizers and leaders who organized to reduce the school to prison pipeline. It represents an existential threat to the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, and shatters the idea of local control for every town, village, city and county in the state.

To Milwaukee specifically, it means long term cuts in the sort of investment and programs that can make Milwaukee residents safer and happier. It’s not a serious proposal and I stand with my community and others in opposing it.”